Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/21/smugmugr.html
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Very interested to see what they do with Flickr. Smugmug is primarily for pro photographers to sell their (primarily wedding/baby/event) photos, so not exactly aligned with how Flickr has worked.
My company (Picture Marketing) uses Smugmug as a vendor (we pass our photos to their online store) and their sales/tech/customer service people have been great and responsive for the 10+ years I’ve worked with them.
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SmugMug is a really good photo hosting site. Easy to use, very flexible. Makes selling your stuff easy. Nice social stuff.
And it is one of the few places where you can you can keep and display - with download protection - full-res photos without compression.
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I received an email from them this morning, and I was like “I have a Flickr account?”
Back in the day, the Sansa Connect was a nice little MP3 player/Internet radio for Yahoo’s service, with listener ratings, and it could show Flickr photos. I did buy it dirt cheap at a factory discount place, but I was miffed when Yahoo kept on breaking more and more bits of it at the mothership. (Never ever buy a proprietary device that depends on a link to someone’s cloud or Internet service.)
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Over on Hacker News there’s been a big thread on this in which Don MacAskill has been participating and trying to answer questions. Sounds like they’re pretty serious about wanting to make this a useful service again.
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interesting video on terms of service …the original international edition
I know Cory has outlined a host of reasons why the service has declined over the years, but for me personally, the photo hosting aspect still works for my best intents. It primarily works for me because of the archival aspect of the service. I have over 31,000 photos on Flickr, and am often able to find precisely what I was looking for when I search for them.
What’s missing is the online interaction and community which was once vibrant, and has since moved on to other social platforms. I doubt that aspect will ever return, as Facebook and Instagram (just two examples) since took over that realm, but we may see another cycle where that activity migrates elsewhere.
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I was wondering if I had slipped into a parallel universe. I was actually genuinely wondering if there was a different Flickr instance in the US and I was a different one or even, given I have not typed in the URL for years, that I was getting the name ‘Flickr’ incorrect.
But no, same Flickr.
Flickr app, working as ever.
Flickr API, all still there.
Flickr UI. Yep, I hated the change and I still hate it now.
Whatever this stuff is around ‘in service mail’ and whatnot, no idea, maybe that went before I joined in 2005?
The email notifications still work as ever, but I guess this is a different thing.
The ‘community’? Yes, maybe, but that is down to the people really. As you say, other services came along to take over that aspect an people moved themselves across, they were not forcibly moved.
For me the only thing that has noticeably changed over the years was the introduction of the crappy UI and allowing video uploads, which I might have used once.
I was annoyed when it was sold to Yahoo, the whole Yahoo login being required was a pain. I was more annoyed with the people selling out than Yahoo though.
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So, how much did Smugmug agree to pay, and where is the money coming from?
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there was a guy (thomas hawk) who started a company called zoom
http://thomashawk.com/2018/04/my-thoughts-on-the-smugmug-flickr-acquisition.html
I did a series of favourite mosaic some time ago
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarchi/125326693/in/album-72057594102089377/
fwiw my Flickr app on my phone works just fine
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Longtime (13 years) happy Flickr user here. I’ve never had any real issues with it at all. I guess I was a little frustrated with the new interface/style until I got used to it. Just over 5000 photos. All my stuff is CC “licensed” and if anyone wants to use it, they are free to do so. I’ve never bothered with the social side of it too much.
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Same. I don’t use it that much and I never really have as I have my own domain and make my own galleries to share with friends and family, etc… But I still upload things once and a while when I shoot with my Nikon. I haven’t had much time to do that the last couple years, though. There are iPhone pics up there as well - especially since the current ones take such great snapshots.
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I’m not much of a photographer, but I’ve always used it to host images I wanted to share, or publish on my blog without using up my web hosting space.
It still works for me, but man, I welcome our new Flickr overlords.
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From the Thomas Hawk article (emphasis mine)
Flickr was purchased by Yahoo back in the early days of the internet in 2005 for probably somewhere around $40 million (give or take $10 million).
2005? That whippersnapper needs to get off my lawn!
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from ludicorp
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I’m just objecting to the idea that 2005 was the “early days” of anything. 
I’d probably been on the Internet for decades at that point.
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yeah I got it…
I was doing a lot of general research in the eighties cough cough…
it’s just economics
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